Plausability Check: Mongolian America

A nomadic, horse-culture people from the steppes converting their empire into one capable of discovering a world thousands of miles across the ocean in a direction that, to the Asians, had nothing in it but endless sea and there was nothing worth looking for?

Completely ASB and no plausible way of achieving it at all
 
Well They did build fleets to attack japan, so they can do ship building to some extent. Also they could possibly discover alaska.
 

dead_wolf

Banned
Short answer: no.

Long answer: Yes, maybe, sorta-not-really. You might be able to see a Mongoloid-descendent elite or one claiming ancestry/legitimacy from the Mongols in a Mongols conquer Europe scenario that eventually go on to America, but a massive nomadic Eurasian empire reaching across the waves? No.
 
Well They did build fleets to attack japan, so they can do ship building to some extent. Also they could possibly discover alaska.

They did'nt build fleets, they comandeered the existing Chinese ships (which were mostly Brown water and Green water ships) and then had the Chinese build a bunch of river ships with the intent of using them in the open ocean.
 
They did'nt build fleets, they comandeered the existing Chinese ships (which were mostly Brown water and Green water ships) and then had the Chinese build a bunch of river ships with the intent of using them in the open ocean.

This line of reasoning always drives me nuts! Why do people continue to insist that the Chinese were unable to sail blue waters and that the mongols were useless without their horses?

Your description of the invasion fleet is over simplified as well.

The Mongols, like the Romans, took the best of the people they conquered and made use of it.

They had become an accomplished amphibious strike force by the reign of Kublai, as witnessed by the invasions of Japan and Java. They made use of Korean and Vietnamese ships masters, navigators and sailors as well as Chinese.

The Chinese were the most advanced shipwrights of their time (rudder, watertight compartments, the Junk rig etc.) and had been making long voyages for quite some time accumulating great seamanship skills.

The Mongols had moved from nomads on the steppes to conquerors of jungles, deserts and mountains...they were adaptable. and no longer relied on their horses. (the final battle in the conquest of China was a naval battle).

the premise states that the mongol empire survives, that means not just the Yuan Dynasty, but the hordes as well. I believe that that would have made the possibility of trans Pacific discovery less likely, since interest and focus would have been westward and not eastward. But, if we concentrate on the Yuan dynasty surviving and the Mongols becoming more and more sinicized I think it is more possible.

With the maritime skills and technology at their disposal I would not limit the possibility of their discovering the Americas, what they would do with them is another matter
 
The story "The Only Game in Town" by Poul Anderson provides just such a scenario, as a Mongol-led expedition is sent out in the time of Kublai Khan, island-hopping across the Aleutians.
 
Why go east into the vast unknown when everything they need, desire and might in the future wish for within their sight to the west?
 
The Mongols were not interested into developing new lands, they were interested in ransacking the old lands. But the again the Bearing straight is only a short skip and a jump across.
 
The Mongols were not interested into developing new lands, they were interested in ransacking the old lands. But the again the Bearing straight is only a short skip and a jump across.

Why skip and jump from one frozen wasteland over to another? Turn around warriors, and go west!
 
This one is easy, have a geologic POD where Beringia does not totally submerge after the last ice age. Then the Mongols and whovever else can keep walking to the Americas.

Yeah I know, this type of POD is supposed to go in the ASB folder but I thought somebody should point this one out.
 

Razgriz 2K9

Banned
The whole premise is silly in and of itself I'm afraid, for the exact same reasons that Grattan stated. The Mongol Empire for all its powers, would be more focused on expansion westward. And had it not been for Ain Jalut and a succession dispute that led to secession and balkanization, we could've had a Mongol Empire ruling over what they would've considered the known world...or close enough.
 
This line of reasoning always drives me nuts! Why do people continue to insist that the Chinese were unable to sail blue waters and that the mongols were useless without their horses?

Your description of the invasion fleet is over simplified as well.

The Mongols, like the Romans, took the best of the people they conquered and made use of it.

They had become an accomplished amphibious strike force by the reign of Kublai, as witnessed by the invasions of Japan and Java. They made use of Korean and Vietnamese ships masters, navigators and sailors as well as Chinese.

The Chinese were the most advanced shipwrights of their time (rudder, watertight compartments, the Junk rig etc.) and had been making long voyages for quite some time accumulating great seamanship skills.

The Mongols had moved from nomads on the steppes to conquerors of jungles, deserts and mountains...they were adaptable. and no longer relied on their horses. (the final battle in the conquest of China was a naval battle).

the premise states that the mongol empire survives, that means not just the Yuan Dynasty, but the hordes as well. I believe that that would have made the possibility of trans Pacific discovery less likely, since interest and focus would have been westward and not eastward. But, if we concentrate on the Yuan dynasty surviving and the Mongols becoming more and more sinicized I think it is more possible.

With the maritime skills and technology at their disposal I would not limit the possibility of their discovering the Americas, what they would do with them is another matter

Not the point. The Mongols were looking for conquest and wealth. Why go where ,to the best of knowledge at the time, there is none of that.
 
Not the point. The Mongols were looking for conquest and wealth. Why go where ,to the best of knowledge at the time, there is none of that.


I don't argue that there was any incentive for them to go east, there wasn't. My rant was directed at the concept that they could not go east. That they were technologically incapable of a trans-oceanic voyage. It's parochial, presumptive, Euro-centric thinking that has gotten us in trouble more often than I can think of.

I think what needs to be established is why did Genghis continue his expansion after he had brought the Mongol people under his sway, and what drove that expansion after his death? was it wealth? territory? Power for power's sake?

Once we understand the driving forces behind Genghis and later Kublai then we can look for appropriate incentives for eastward exploration. I expect the Mongols already had a pretty good idea of what lay to their northeast and that is one reason they expanded south and west.

Personally I think that if any sort of contact did occur, it would be in the reign of Kublai, by sea, completely accidental, dismissed in court as "lost at sea" and one way.

The net result would be no effect in the Khanates and minimal effect in the Americas. IMHO (although I do have an ATL in the works with a different outcome).
 
Top